Master of War

The world first learned of Blackwater USA in March 2004 when several of its men were ambushed and killed in Fallujah, Iraq. Their bodies were badly beaten, and two were then hung from a bridge as a sign of Iraqi resistance to the U.S. occupation. In the years that followed, Blackwater grew to become one of the U.S. government's most trusted partners in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite headline-grabbing controversies such as the shooting of Iraqi civilians by Blackwater guards in a Baghdad traffic circle in 2007.Based on her extraordinary access to Blackwater founder Erik Prince and dozens of his key executives, author Suzanne Simons offers a riveting, eye-opening portrait of the former Navy SEAL and the company that became the face of private warfare in the twenty-first century. Prince sat atop an empire that not only included a massive training complex for military and law enforcement but also comprised an entire aviation division that catered to military needs in the world's most dangerous locations and a private spy company run by former top CIA men. Master of War is an intimate look at the rise and fall of an extraordinary company-led by a contemporary prince, unaccountable to American voters, with the instruments of war at his disposal.

Suzanne Simons is an executive producer at CNN, based in Atlanta. She has worked as a freelance anchor for CNN International since 1988 in both Berlin and Atlanta. She was a freelance foreign correspondent in Germany and covered the Kosovo conflict from Macedonia and Kosovo in 1999.